Does anyone feel a dizzying dissonance from President Obama’s rhetoric for world change-you-can-believe-in? A déjà vu discordance between rhetoric and action? Between rhetoric and probable inaction, or possible contradictory action? That queasiness made up of stubborn little undertows of past disappointments? I was also haunted by the lyric from a Frankie Valli classic as I watched him waxing eloquent in Cairo: “You’re just too good to be true!”

Is it me, or is awaiting Obama’s follow-through a bit like standing in front of a slot machine wondering if a payoff will actually come. They say the inconsistency of the paying off builds and intensifies an addiction to the experience. Like how the press was titillated by whether McCain would be harsh or friendly on a given campaign day. The excitement of wondering if Bush would grammatically arrange a next sentence. Or maybe what middle school malicious nickname he would inflict on a member of the press corps.

As extreme right wingers assault Obama with accusations of non-patriotism and socialism, progressives hasten to defend him against the ridiculous and irrational slings and arrows. They are so busy defending Obama they are not measuring Obama’s behaviors away from that exhausting context. Not measuring his actions critically (more than his ever generalized lofty rhetoric) in terms of the restoration of our constitution and the welfare and the security of the citizenry.

Peter Martin asserts his distrust of Obama’s intentions more boldly than I in a WSW article, Obama in Cairo: A New Face for Imperialism.

http://informationclearinghouse.info/article22774.htm

“In his speech in Cairo, Obama was playing the role for which he was drafted and promoted by a decisive section of the US financial elite and the military and foreign policy apparatus. This role is to provide a new face for US imperialism as part of a shift in the tactics, but not the strategy, of Washington’s drive for world domination.”

Mr. Martin contends that the U.S., Russia, Iran and China are in a deadly global game to control the rich oil and gas reserves of the Caspian Basin and the Persian Gulf. The long term, tragic in human terms, military game — blood for oil. Is that the real “progress” Obama and some elite covert mentors are focused on? Economic and imperialist goals? Global profiteering once again?

Is his generalized rhetoric an opiate of hope, to pacify U.S and now world citizens? To distract from and conceal the bottom line profit motive of a sociopathic and opaque ruling status quo? We idealists all around the world are straining hard to read security and justice between his proverbial lines. Our desperate optimism. His willingness to tease on?

Yes, after Bush, “super-clod”, Obama is an intelligent and passionate upgrade as leader. How effortlessly he can fill stadiums with his dazzling rhetoric “you really want to believe in”.

But the dissonance. Don’t you feel it? Don’t fight to deny it, tempting as that is.

I want to go along with his good-willed apologists and titillated members of the press who insist he is a “centrist” and in his own good time will right the ship of state. He is our pragmatic champion, ever cautious, reviewing the situation. Situations. Some admittedly monstrous situations created or exacerbated by the profound incompetence of the Bush administration.

Is Obama his own man — “our” man? Has an iconoclastic statesman climbed upon the world stage or a superb gamesman? A front man. Maybe, as Martin asserts, a front man for the game of the status quo political, corporate and military “machines” who helped get him there.

Martin takes strong issue with Obama’s policy double standards as well as his cronyism with the the Egytian and Saudi leaders:

The speech delivered by US President Barack Obama in Cairo yesterday was riddled with contradictions. He declared his opposition to the “killing of innocent men, women, and children,” but defended the ongoing US wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and the US proxy war in Pakistan, while remaining silent on the most recent Israeli slaughter of Palestinians in Gaza. These wars have killed at least one million Iraqis and tens of thousands in Afghanistan, Pakistan and the Palestinian territories.

Obama declared his support for democracy, human rights and women’s rights, after two days of meetings with King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia and Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak, two of the most notorious tyrants in the Middle East.”

Paul Craig Roberts, in America’s Violent Extremism also points out the irony of Obama’s crony-like posturing with Egypt.

http://informationclearinghouse.info/article22771.htm

Cairo is the capital of Egypt, an American puppet state whose ruler suppresses the aspirations of Egyptian Muslims and cooperates with Israel in the blockade of Gaza.

Robert Fisk in an article in The Independent is equally cynical of President Obama’s rhetoric.

http://informationclearinghouse.info/article22755.htm

And please note that Obama has chosen Egypt for his latest address to the Muslims, a country run by an ageing potentate – Hosni Mubarak is 80 – who uses his secret police like a private army to imprison human rights workers, opposition politicians, anyone in fact who challenges the great man’s rule. At this point, we won’t mention torture. Be sure that this little point is unlikely to get much play in the Obama sermon, just as he surely will not be discussing Saudi Arabia’s orgy of head-chopping when he chats to King Abdullah on Wednesday.

So what’s new, folks? Arabs, I find, have a very shrewd conception of what goes on in Washington – the lobbying, the power politics, the dressing up of false friendship in Rooseveltian language – even if ordinary Americans do not. They are aware that the "new" America of Obama looks suspiciously like the old one of Bush and his lads and ladies. First, Obama addresses Muslims on Al-Arabiya television. Then he addresses Muslims in Istanbul. Now he wants to address Muslims all over again in Cairo.

I suppose Obama could say: "I promise I will not make any decision until I first consult with you and the Jewish side" along with more promises about being a friend of the Arabs. Only that’s exactly what Franklin Roosevelt told King Abdul Aziz on the deck of USS Quincy in 1945, so the Arabs have heard that one before. I guess we’ll hear about terrorism being as much a danger to Arabs as to Israel – another dull Bush theme – and, Obama being a new President, we might also have a "we shall not let you down" theme.

Wajahat Ali in Obama Chooses a Reliable Dictatorship in "Counterpunch" also finds Obama’s choices gravely disappointing:

http://informationclearinghouse.info/article22598.htm

By choosing Cairo, Egypt as the platform for his long awaited address to the global Muslim community, President Barack Obama predictably leans on a reliable dictatorship suffocating a country that is teetering toward religious and political irrelevance.

[snip]

Similarly, the near-30-year, brutal autocracy of Hosni Mubarak weighs heavily on the immobilised body of an exasperated, stifled and proud populace who’ve wearily observed their country, a former beacon for Arab nationalism, transformed into a loyal watchdog and stooge for anti-democratic, "pro-western" policies.

Perhaps Turkey, which Obama visited last month, served as a more ideal and dynamic location due to its successful marriage of secular democracy and Islam, as evidenced by the election of the AKP party, a moderate, pro-western political party with Islamic leanings.

Or Obama could have chosen Indonesia, the most populous Muslim nation in the world, which recently held free elections and whose citizens roundly rejected rightwing, deeply conservative Islamic parties in favor of non-sectarianism and moderation.

In The Grim Picture of Obama’s Middle East, Noam Chomsky takes a hard look at what US looks for in its allies. A seeming “moderate” Arab country is one politically convenient to our imperialist needs, not based on the welfare and security of its citizenry.

http://informationclearinghouse.info/article22777.htm

In the background is the Obama administration’s goal, enunciated most clearly by Senator John Kerry, chair of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, to forge an alliance of Israel and the ‘moderate’ Arab states against Iran. The term ‘moderate’ has nothing to do with the character of the state, but rather signals its willingness to conform to U.S. demands.

Wajahat Ali expands on this “moderate” cronyism with Egypt in his aforementioned article:

Yet, Obama’s choice of Egypt is an implicit endorsement and validation of Mubarak’s dictatorship, and it reiterates the oft-spoken but albeit true cliché in the Muslim world that US merely covets selfish policy interests instead of democratization, autonomy and self determination by and for the Arab and Muslim people.

During a visit to Egypt last week, Robert Gates, the US secretary of defense, affirmed that America’s $2bn in aid to Egypt will continue, thus assuring Egypt’s perennial spot as one of US’s closest allies and recipients of monetary benevolence.

This charity flows annually despite the Egyptian government’s brutal crackdown on political opposition, the free press, dissidents and even critical bloggers whose punishment runs the ignominious gamut from harassment and arrests to torture and "mysterious disappearances"…

[snip]

Mubarak’s Egypt also shares a lucrative outsourcing arrangement with the US. Instead of telecommunication and tech support services, Egypt, along with Syria, specializes in torture, so US can conveniently bypass laws, due process and international human rights.

Moderate then is when a country will play corporate, military codependent, even thug enforcer in terms of covert torture. The US does not sound like it has a road map to enlightened partnership among the countries of the world as well as its own citizenry. Cronyism once again downfalls the U.S., this time on a global plane. Wasn’t the Bushco reference to useful heads of foreign states (or those they directly installed), “Yeah, he’s our guy!” without concern for the character of such leader. Malleability to the US imperial will was the measure. Cronyism 10, Human Rights zip.

As for the less generalized portion of his speech, does Obama really believe a two-state solution is possible for Israel and Palestine? After his deafening silence during the Gazan massacre in December 2008? As Paul Craig Roberts in his aforementioned article writes:

… For Obama’s commitment to be fulfilled, Israel would have to give back the stolen West Bank lands, dismantle the wall, accept the right to return, and release 1.5 million Palestinians from the Gaza Ghetto. As this seems an unlikely collection of events, the nature of the "two-state solution" endorsed by Obama remains to be seen.

Tough love with a capital “t” if he meant it. Does President Obama truly have a viable plan or is this giving ‘em the old razzle dazzle chutzpah? $3 billion a year to Israel from the US is a nonverbal signal of strong cronyism, muffling the impact of Obama’s sudden “friskier” and timely posturing. And when the hawks get excited will that convince the progressives that Obama is on a serious course of action? Or give the useful illusion of momentum as the pundits speculate and spin away, eventually “signifying nothing.” A few more coins from the slot machine?

Compelling talk should convert to walking the walk. You can aim high, Mr. President. Just don’t aim deceptively.

President Obama spoke with justified emotion of the 3,000 American deaths from 9/11. But what of the deaths of over a million non-Al-Qaeda Iraqis? What of the thousands of civilians killed by our war machine in Iraq, Afghanistan and Pakistan. What of the massacre of Gaza enabled by our U.S. weaponry and our silent collusion? President Obama preached against the the “killing of innocents” as cited in the Koran as an object lesson for Muslims. Paul Craig Roberts observes,

“In his first 100 days, Obama managed to create two million Pakistani refugees. It took Israel 60 years to create 3.5 million Palestinian refugees.”

As for our own country’s laws, there has been minimal appeasement to those pressing for legal accountability and constitutional restoration and balance of powers. “Easy gives”. A few coins from that slot machine, once again, but no major payoffs. Yes, close Guantanamo, but the prisoners will be imprisoned elsewhere not tried within our legal system? Keep the secrecy, the military tribunals? Give immunity to the authorizers of inhuman torture? Even reward them? “Heckuva job, General Stanley McChrystal!” Here’s a huge promotion to oversee the Aghanistan theater after betraying its fellow Muslims in Iraq with death and torture. A commander whose reputation guarantees serious numbers of civilian casualties.

Why indefinite detention without trials for the remaining detainees? Codified in the 1600’s, recognized for its justice, how can the restoration of habeas corpus not be first on the agenda for restoring our constitutional as well as collective moral health? Yes, he was a constitutional lawyer. He "should" know …

Obama discussed the escalation of the war as a necessity in general terms, in military and political terms and not human ones. He echoed to our world neighbors yet again the spirit of American exceptionalism.

There is a gripping article written by Christopher Hedges called War is Sin about the human tragedy of war. I wish Obama could embrace war’s reality at such an empathetic level. Again, his silence over the massacre in Gaza, his lack of addressing the prospect of serious levels of "collateral damage" in Afghanistan (such a dehumanizing expression which is telling) conveys a stunning indifference to human life.

http://informationclearinghouse.info/article22749.htm

There is a difference between killing someone who is trying to kill you and taking the life of someone who does not have the power to harm you. The first is killing. The second is murder. But in the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, where the enemy is elusive and rarely seen, murder occurs far more often than killing. Families are massacred in airstrikes. Children are gunned down in blistering suppressing fire laid down in neighborhoods after an improvised explosive device goes off near a convoy. Artillery shells obliterate homes. And no one stops to look. The dead and maimed are left behind.

[snip]

The young soldiers and Marines do not plan or organize the war. They do not seek to justify it or explain its causes. They are taught to believe. The symbols of the nation and religion are interwoven. The will of God becomes the will of the nation. This trust is forever shattered for many in war. Soldiers in combat see the myth used to send them to war implode. They see that war is not clean or neat or noble, but venal and frightening. They see into war’s essence, which is death.

Another article I read this week that made Obama’s speech lose its sparkle was about the little known scope of U.S. military bases across the globe and their impact, not only draining our economy, but too often damaging the quality of life of the residents of other countries. Chalmers Johnson in On the Cost of Empire discusses a collection of essays, edited by Catherine Lutz, on U.S. militarism and imperialism.

http://informationclearinghouse.info/article22712.htm

Some 865 bases located in all the continents except Antarctica is not only a staggeringly large number compared even with the great empires of the past, but one the U.S. clearly cannot afford given its severely weakened economic condition.

Nonetheless, there has been no public discussion by the Obama administration over starting to liquidate our overseas bases or beginning to scale back our imperialist presence in the rest of the world.

[snip]

Today the “abuses and usurpations” of American standing armies “include more than rape, murder, sexual harassment, robbery, other common crimes, seizure of people’s lands, destruction of property, and the cultural imperialism that have accompanied foreign armies since time immemorial. They now include terrorizing jet blasts of frequent low-altitude and night-landing exercises, helicopters and warplanes crashing into homes and schools and the poisoning of environments and communities with military toxins; and they transform ‘host’ communities into targets for genocidal nuclear as well as ‘conventional’ attacks.” When it comes to opportunism, Gerson notes that the Navy’s Indian Ocean tsunami relief operations of 2005 helped open the way for U.S. forces to return to Thailand and for greater cooperation with the Indonesian military.

[snip]

(1) “Integral elements of misogyny infect military training. …The military is a violence-producing institution to which sexual and gender violence are intrinsic. … The essence of military forces is their pervasive, deep-rooted contempt for women, which can be seen in military training that completely denies femininity and praises hegemonic masculinity.”

(2) “The OWAAMV [Okinawa Women Act Against Military Violence] movement illustrates from a gender perspective that ‘the protected,’ who are structurally deprived of political power, are in fact not protected by the militarized security policies; rather their livelihoods are made insecure by these very policies. The movement has also illuminated the fact that ‘gated’ bases do not confine military violence to within the bases. Those hundred-of-miles-long fences around the bases are there only to assure the readiness of the military and military operations by excluding and even oppressing the people living outside the gated bases.”

There is much that cries out for humanist and lawful change in this world, in this country. Morality and the law would constitute a reliable compass. Cronyism, profit motive, demonization of those unlike us are dangerous to our recovery. They caused systemic problems for our government within and so many of our global neighbors whose lives we have massively impacted for the worse without. Power and competition seem to be the goals of our collective patriarchal status quo ruling class, even with the mandate of our last national election. Obama, Congress, the military, the lobbyists, the corporatists. Lip service for partnership and cooperation maybe, i.e., a few coins down the chute to keep the earnest progressives poised and praying but silent.

I am impressed President Obama’s speech has been praised so enthusiastically. Perhaps he deserves more credit than I am extending. Indeed, after President Bush he was a comforting sight for very sore, discouraged eyes among millions all over the world.

One of my brothers maintains poor President Obama is having to ride the proverbial tiger. I fear he may be speaking to us from its tummy.